


Only Them

by Liora_Holmes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Sexism, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Smut, Underage Sex, slightly aged up characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-15 00:46:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liora_Holmes/pseuds/Liora_Holmes
Summary: Post ADwD, Daenerys has returned to Westeros. Cersei is dead, the prophecy fulfilled when she is killed by her own brother, Jaime, and Arya Stark has completed her purge of the architects of the Red Wedding. Now, The Dragon Queen's interest finally faces North, towards the Armies of the Dead and Jon Snow. As the greatest war in 8,000 years begins, Jaime Lannister and Arya Stark find more in common than they might have expected.





	1. The Lion and the She-Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fanfic that I have written in about 10 years and I am extremely nervous to post it. Comments, etc. are always welcome- I know this is a rare pairing. I plan to update weekly if I can. Hope you like it.
> 
> Couple notes about canon - I am, as much as possible, sticking to book canon, though my construction of what happens post-ADwD is heavily influenced by show canon. I will allow myself at least one total capitulation to show canon for comedic reasons, and will mark it in the notes at the beginning of that chapter. I'm leaving a lot of Westerosi politics stuff intentionally vague if it isn't really necessary to the story. 
> 
> For those of you who care, I've nudged Arya and Sansa's ages up while keeping timeline relatively reasonable. The story is set in 303 AC. Sansa was born in 284, and Arya in 286. This makes Arya 12, not 9, when the series begins (which has always seemed more reasonable to me anyway, given her in-canon maturity level) and 17 at the start of this story. Sansa is 19, Jon is 20. Jaime and Tyrion are their canon ages, 37 and 30 respectively. 
> 
> Rape/Non-Con elements will not involve the main pairing. They may or may not involve the main characters. 
> 
> Please comment! This is unbetaed because I have no friends who write fanfic and know this fandom, so mistakes are all my own.

 

            The Kingslayer sat silhouetted against the open window of the Dragonstone armory in the waning light of a late winter afternoon, cleaning his sword with his good hand.

He frowned at the setting sun. The days were getting extremely short. Shorter than he think he’d ever seen, even in the other winters he’d lived through. More unnervingly, they were not shortening naturally. Dawn stayed the same time, but the night started earlier each evening. _Maybe the legends really are true_ , he thought, _and we’ll wake up one morning and the sun won’t rise at all_. He pushed the thought from his head. No use thinking about that. The fight against the forces massing at the wall was Jon Snow’s problem. With his stubbed hand, he couldn’t lead the vanguard there, not that he’d be trusted to. No, he’d do what he’d always done. He’d guard this pretty – and so far, thankfully, not _obviously_ mad– daughter of Aerys Targaryen, and make sure the realm still had a ruler when this mystical nonsense with the Long Night was over.

Jaime was the last of his son’s Kingsguard living, his survival – and continued place in the Kingsguard, secured first by his betrayal of his sister, and the Old Grandfather. Barristan Selmy had taught the Dragon Queen well as he wandered through Slaver’s Bay and Volantis and, as Tyrion tells it, half the rest of bloody Essos before finally joining with Greyjoy’s fleet and her dragons. Daenerys Stormborn had been ready to execute him, and he had been ready to die, until Barristan, of all people, pled for his life, citing his…honor. Not his dutifulness to his vows, no, that could not be touted by any sane man. But his service to the realm was, in Ser Barristan’s words, “without question”.

Kingslayer, Queenslayer, Kinslayer, Traitor, Cripple, Lecher, Fool. And yet somehow, unintentionally, improbably, Jaime Lannister survived. And he was here _again_ , in a Targaryen royal court, half guard, half hostage, distrusted by the monarch, occasionally consulted by her advisors, but mostly left to his own devices while the nations of Westeros waged what was being called the War of the Second Conquest. The Queen burned the castles anew and brought the seven kingdoms to heel – all but Dorne, to her eternal frustration, just like her ancestors before her. And now, with Stannis finally routed in the north by the Northern Civil War, Queen Daenerys was finally turning her attention to the front Ned Stark’s bastard had been bleating about incessantly by raven for nigh on two years – The Wall.

All in all, he felt fairly done with it all. His grief, where there had been any, had worn down now like an old battle scar, only occasionally troublesome if pressed too directly. He’d mourned the boys, and missed his daughter, still captive in Dorne, of course. Well, he’d mourned Tommen, and a part of him missed his father. But not her. Not by the end. Madness had not been a good look on his Cersei. Neither had short hair, actually. The only nightmare that troubled him now was hearing her last words to him, over, and over, blended with the same ones he had heard twenty years before – _Burn them All_.

And now, he found himself oddly free of obligations he hadn’t even realized had weighed on him since his birth. He smiled into the waning sun. Maybe he’d head to the brothels in town tonight. Or maybe just get a good dinner. With the queen present, on the island, they still got the best of the Crownlands harvests, and things were not as spare here as they were elsewhere. Selmy and Grey Worm had the guard, and he had the night off, as he did most nights. Ned Stark’s bastard had come by ship the day before, and Jaime might actually be needed for some sort of work tomorrow – best to enjoy the evening.

He was planning his likely circuit of the taverns and brothels for the evening when a voice started him out of thought.

“Lannister”.

Jaime jumped visibly at the girl’s voice, then cursed himself for being surprised. He was usually quite aware of his surroundings. _Getting Old, Kingslayer_ , he thought _._ But when he looked at the door he knew why. Arya Stark had slipped in the door to the armory. _So at least some of the rumors about her are true_. The younger Stark sister was silent as a snake these days, and almost as threatening, with that thin little sword at her hip, her all black breaches and doublet, and that…look in her steel grey eyes, older and colder and deadlier than they should be for a girl her age. _Well, a woman her age, she was surely a woman by now_. What was she now, 17? Gods only knew what had turned her from the little bratty tomboy he’d met at Winterfell into, well, this, whatever this was, in just a few years, but Jaime had to admit he didn’t dislike the change. The stories he had heard from Brienne were certainly intriguing.

Jaime stood and paced, recovering from his surprise so he could tower over the girl and regain some dignity. “Little Lady Arya Stark…” he drawled. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were a little brat chasing cats among the dragon skulls. And here you are again, doing the same thing.”

 _Didn’t rise to the insult, or laugh at my exceedingly clever joke,_ Jaime thought ruefully.  Jaime had been _sure_ he’d get a rise out of her – she’d been such a salty, mouthy thing at Kings Landing. Instead, her face was completely calm, unreadable. He’d heard rumors that she had changed, to be sure, and some direct accounts, now that he exchanged ravens with Brienne. People were calling her “the she-wolf” now, just as they’d called her aunt, Lyanna. Jaime did see why. The resemblance was uncanny – at least physically. But Lyanna had been all fire and passion and noise, like Arya had been when he’d met her at a child. The woman standing in front of him had none of her aunt’s easy humor and winning smiles. In fact, she was downright unnerving. He’d heard rumors that she’d trained in Braavos with the Faceless Men, and could look like anyone she wished, or that she had concocted some strange magic to kill Walder Frey…and all of Walder Frey’s children…but he had never believed much of that claptrap. Still, he could now see why such rumors persisted about her. There was an undeniably strange energy around the girl.

“I need a sparring partner”, said Arya matter-of-factly. “Brienne told me not to expect most of the men down here to be able to really give me a challenge. The good fighters are all at the Wall.” _An insult_ , thought Jaime, but she didn’t seem to have meant it as one. Her face was as quiet as before. “Brienne suggested I seek you out while I’m here.”

Jaime laughed. “Of course, Brienne sent you. Tales of your wonderful skills with that little sword of yours have spread far and wide. I’d never have believed them if they hadn’t come from the Beauty. She wrote me a raven when you bested her at Winterfell.”

“Excellent then. Tomorrow, at dawn?” Arya asked, as if the matter had already been settled. “the practice yard near the outer bailey. No one uses it, so we won’t have onlookers. I’d rather not make a spectator show of it.”

Jaime smirked at her. “Well, Lady Stark, Brienne is very complementary to my abilities, but she seems to be forgetting my…unfortunate circumstances.” He held up the stump of his right hand and waved it at her. “As much as this is _genuinely_ embarrassing to admit, at this point, it wouldn’t be hard for me to be beat by a little girl. If you can best Brienne, I’m afraid I won’t be much of a match for you, not anymore. I’d be happy to point you towards some who might give you a good round though.”

Arya didn’t miss a beat. She drew her sword with her left hand, clearly practiced at it, turning the sword over, then tossed it casually over to her right.

 “Which did you lose, your sword hand or your off hand?” she asked casually. “My sword hand” answered Jaime, curious.

“Fine.” said Arya. As she tossed her sword effortlessly back and sheathed it gracefully. Jaime held back a wince. _Gods I miss my  hand_. “You’ll fight with your left, I’ll fight with my right. I’ll bind up my arm. A fair fight.” She didn’t wait for a confirmation. Without another word, Arya turned and slipped from the room.

Jaime found himself surprised. _This,_ he thought, _will at least be interesting_. He did long for a good sparring partner. _Dawn it will be then, she-wolf_.

\----

Arya strode across the ancient battlements of Dragonstone that led from the old armory, where the Kingslayers quarters were back to the main castle where she had been granted chambers. It was only five thirty in the evening, before dinner, but the stars were out in full already, just a sliver of moon providing any light. Arya didn’t need much light to find her way places anymore, though. She had mapped most of the main keep for her mind in the first day here, walking the corridors, finding the fastest way between things.

Jon would be here for a fortnight, maybe more, as he and Queen Daenerys coordinated the Northern Assault. The nights were growing longer and longer. Winter had come and had stayed, three long years of winter. Now Night was coming, a darkness not seen in 10,000 years, or so Jon said. They had to decide when and how to strike, the armies of men against the armies of the dead. Jon was captivated in the grandeur of it all, a general out of story, something out of Old Nan’s stories. But being a general took time, and planning.

For her part, Arya hated the waiting. She preferred to be _doing_ something. As much as she didn’t like coming back south, there really hadn’t been much of interest for her to do in Winterfell now that the war in the North was winding down. She’d go to the Wall to fight eventually. But she’d do it next to Jon. Protecting him. She’d lost plenty of siblings already. Now that Sansa was safe with Brienne- Arya had assured herself of the woman’s abilities and loyalty - she’d travel with Jon when he and Sansa were apart. She was adamant that the two of them survive this war, and there were even more assassins in the South who might be looking for Jon’s head than there were in the North.

She had hoped to finish her list while in the south as well. Ilyn Payne still lived, she knew, and was in Kings Landing, though he had been dismissed as headsman. And of course, when Jon had learned from the Imp that it had been Jaime Lannister who had pushed Bran out of a tower window all those years ago, he had joined her list as well. But it had been almost two years – two long years of ever-darkening winter – since she had returned to Westeros and begun her hunting of the Freys, ending at the Twins, and then returned to Winterfell.

With Sansa and Jon alive, she lived in a changed world. One where she had duties to other people. And she had found that her list had receded in her mind as those on it dropped dead, by her hand or someone else’s. What replaced that rage, that fury, that had so long kept her alive, was her conviction that she would lose no more family – even if it meant giving up her vengeance.

She laughed to herself. _I’m getting soft_. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the Queen’s dragons – Rhaegal, by the looks of it, soar overhead. _No_ , she corrected herself _maybe_ _the world really has changed around me_.

Thinking back on her conversation with the Kingslayer, she was troubled that she had gotten so close to slipping her mask, the one she wore every day with those she did not know, the face of No One, indifferent, unmovable, and deadly. She’d meant to say a lot more him. Ser Jaime was no good man. He had been in love with Cersei, apparently – a thought that made Arya wrinkle her nose whenever she thought of it, as it obviously drew her mind to how disgusting it would be to have…intimacies with her own brothers. And yet Brienne spoke surprisingly highly of the man and his honor. He’d ordered the deaths of Stark men years ago…but then he had saved Brienne’s life in the Riverlands – in fact, it was clear that she considered her debt to Lannister to be almost as solemn as her oaths to Catelyn Stark. And Jaime had opened the gates of the Red Keep to the dragon queen to kill Cersei. Killing two mad monarchs almost made up for siring a third. Almost.

When she went to the armory to ask him to spar with her, she had _meant_ to talk to Jaime Lannister a little more, ferret out what his plans were, where his allegiances lay. Queen Daenerys had kept him as a member of her Kingsguard after he had helped her kill the Mad Queen. Still, he was kept at arms-length, apparently, and rarely given guard duty. If he was a threat to Jon, she needed to know.

But when she’d seen him there in the armory, she had felt a certain…compassion towards him. Which was a feeling she was not expecting. When she’d last seen him, Jaime had been all golden armor and princely beauty. Sansa would have swooned for him if he had been allowed to marry. Even Arya had admitted to Sansa on their way to Kings Landing all those years ago that he might be the most…perfect man she’d ever seen. As a girl, she’d meant that the way you might talk about how happy you were that you’d made a perfect bullseye, or the perfect shape of a pot you’d just made. He’d just been…made… correctly. His jaw, his hair, his strength, his ability with a sword, he just was a flawlessly made human. She had tried to explain this to Sansa, but Sansa had laughed at this hysterically, and Arya had not heard the end of her supposed “fancying of the Kingslayer” for some time, which had soured her on Jaime Lannister quickly.

Now, though…Jaime Lannister could not have been further from that golden-haired prince she had seen years ago. He had a stubbly, half shaven beard, and he was dirtier than he was when she used to see him. You could tell that he’d actually been _fighting_ recently and not just standing next to a throne looking pretty. And his hand…Arya couldn’t imagine losing her sword hand. It was horrifying and fascinating to her, like a scene of gore she couldn’t look away from. The stump itself wasn’t gory, of course, just smooth skin, but to see how it had _changed_ him…His features were the same perfect features they’d always been, of course, but his cheeks were sunken, his frown more pronounced. And his eyes…there was so much bitterness in them now.

Now that she was a woman, and not a girl, and had…urges like any adult did, she could at least note that yes, he was still incredibly handsome. But it truly hadn’t been that that had distracted her from pumping him for information. It had been all those thoughts about how he must have changed, his sword hand taken. Like he had been murdered and yet doomed to wander the earth anyway.

Arya shook all of this out of her head. There would be plenty of time to suss out Jaime Lannister in the practice yard. She was excited to compete with her off hand, and not entirely certain that she would best Lannister. Losing to him…would be embarrassing. After a quick supper in her quarters, she returned to the battlements where she could be alone, tied her left hand up, and practiced.


	2. First Round

 

            The old practice yard Arya had scouted for this her sparring matches was disused; a newer one inside the keep got all of the attention of the groundskeepers, and this yard was badly in need of sweeping. As she arrived in the pre-dawn light of her third morning at Dragonstone, Arya hoped the dust and pebbles might throw Lannister off his game. She was used to fighting in sewers and canals and anywhere else it was necessary, but certainly some knights expecting the hard- packed earth – or the marble of a castle floor – might be somewhat caught off guard by a small slip on a pebble. _That is, if the man shows up at all_. She supposed he very well might not. But sure enough, after a few minutes, she saw the tall, blonde figure coming down the stairs to join her.

Lannister made no greeting or small talk, which she was grateful for. After shedding his cloak and putting on a simple padded leather sparring jacket, he simply asked, “Wooden Swords or Steel, my Lady?”

She cocked an eye at him. “I prefer steel. I trust you have enough control to avoid accidentally wounding me sparring?”

Lannister glared at her. It was an insulting question. He did not dignify it with a response.

“Did you bring something to bind up that wrist?” he asked. She had. She showed him her left hand. She’d wrapped the strip of cloth around her hand, tying it so that her fingers couldn’t move.

Lannister tsked at her. “No, no, no, it’s not like that at all. See, you still have the length, then, and you still have a wrist. I miss the wrist more than the hand sometimes. Can’t push myself up the same way if I’m on the ground, you see, can’t balance. You forget how much you rely on your off arm for that.”

“No” he said, approaching her. “It’s really more like this.” Ser Jaime took her sword arm and bent it up on itself, so that she was cupping her own shoulder, then tied the bindings around it. “See? He tapped her elbow “The little stump there, totally useless. And you’re lucky because your elbow has feeling. This thing” – he gestured with his stump – is all scar tissue.”

He finished binding her arm, wrapped snugly, then reached down and moved her swordbelt to the other side of her. “Fine. Let’s begin, _Ser_ Stark.”

The title came out in a sarcastic sneer. Arya felt rage pool up inside her, and they fought. It was almost over before it began. She was angry, attacked too brashly. In two clashes of steel, Jaime had her in the worst position she could be in – sword to sword, in the front, pure might against pure might, like posed toy soldiers. And in that moment, Arya composed herself, her rage disappeared, and she was No One again.

Neither her size nor her sword could take a frontal assault like this for long. So, she turned to her favorite tactic – she dropped in a squat, almost to the ground, when Jaime was pressing the hardest forward. He stumbled slightly and she sprang back, using her bent legs to propel her backwards and give her the necessary distance to fight like she should.

It was clear quickly that the Kingslayer was more practiced than she was at fighting off-hand. He’d had years, she supposed, to train. She had only fought with her right hand out of necessity in a few swordfights. She found, though, as she circled him like a stalking predator, keeping her distance and only striking out at clear opportunity, that he was quite predictable. She guessed that after he was maimed, he had relearned how to fight by learning sword forms, a series of moves he could execute perfectly. But that was all he had. No improvisation, no creativity. She had seen him fight as a girl, and had marveled as how smoothly he had moved, like his sword was a part of his arm, and his arm knew the right place to be before a lesser swordsman could even think out a strategy. That grace was gone now. He was no true swordsman with his left.

“You fight like a common solider” Arya stated casually after leaping back over a low swipe of his sword and getting distance between them. “Tell me, did the swordsmaster at Casterly Rock teach you those forms when you were still in dresses?”

“At least I don’t wear dresses anymore.” Arya could feel the attack coming before Lannister rushed her. She deliberately dropped her right arm protectively, as if expecting an attack from that side…then caught the actual attack that came from her left. He stumbled and she hit him square in the chest with the hilt of her sword. He stumbled back. Arya expected to have to press the fight to its now-obvious conclusion and force him to the ground, but she was pleased to see he had enough respect for her skill, apparently, to know he’d been beat. He dropped his sword, put up his hands, and smirked at her. “Yield. Not bad, she-wolf. Again?”

Arya raised Needle again, and from then on, they barely took 10 seconds to break between bouts. Arya’s confidence was up. She had versatility that Lannister lacked. She’d found that being left handed had always helped her there. Right handed fighters were at a loss with their off hand, having never been asked to do anything with it before. But the world was made for them. She’d been using her right hand to do this and that since she was a babe.

Lannister’s forms _were_ powerful. He used ones that brought devastating amounts of force on the opponent, turning each contest into a pure test of strength as often as he could. Arya was fast, but Jaime’s strength as a swordsman had once clearly also been speed, rather than the pure brawn she was used to when sparring with Brienne. Brienne fought like an immovable mountain and could be dodged and tired out by Arya zipping around a yard. She found, though, that Lannister moved almost as quickly. _He probably used to fight a lot like I do_ , Arya thought.

He won the next two bouts. Arya was able to yield the second bout standing, as the Kingslayer had done, but on the third she was pressed so badly that she lost balance entirely and fell to the ground, Jaime Lannister sneering down at her, his sword lazily wandering from her neck to her breast to her stomach, as If deciding where to stab.

She felt a flash of danger, replaced by white hot fury. In that moment, he looked so much like his son. His eyes were not as cruel as Joffrey’s had been, but it was the same emeralds shining out of the same golden face, and he laughed the same way when he held a deadly weapon.

The powerful rage that Arya had held against the Lannisters for years now coursed through her veins. She was out of breath, but gasped “Three out of five”.

“Fine” the Kingslayer drawled, as if she was a bore to him. “But I’m due to attend the Queen in an hour, so that’s all the time I’ll have for you today, little Lady.”

Arya fought hard. She came close on the fourth bout; she had gotten him on the ground, but his legs were still under him and his sword was ready to tip Needle out of her hand. If there had been other fighters, he would have been set upon before he got up – and she would have been disarmed. She offered a draw and he accepted with a nod.

The fifth bout dragged on for what felt like hours. Arya was getting a sense of the forms he knew and had started to neutralize some of them. But she ended up again where she least wanted to be…face to face with Jaime Lannister, steel to steel, and this time, her muscles gave out and he pushed her, so she fell on her bum in the practice yard.

Lannister stepped back from her, laughing to himself. “3 out of 5, eh? You know, that’s what Tommen used to ask me when he was down 1 to 2 on naughts and crosses.” Without offering a hand to help her up, he shucked his leather jack and sheathed his sword as he headed up the steps. “Better Luck Tomorrow, Arya Underfoot.”

Arya hated how much the old insult, and the tone, made her seethe.


	3. Second Round

The second day was much as the first, except Arya was prepared. She had realized, her mind wandering while Jon droned on about the Wall’s fortifications to the dragon queen, that her failure hadn’t been physical. Her blows were true, her strategies reasonable. But Jaime Lannister had pulled her back into Arya Stark of Winterfell, a much younger version of herself, and one who was much angrier, and less controlled, than who she was now.

Arya had learned to drain her mind of all emotion when she fought, and then, pick out the emotion she had access to at the moment that would most fuel her in the fight to come. It was usually vengeance, but sometimes it was pride, or pure, raw anger, or even fear. Then, that emotion burned in her eyes and she could stop, well, thinking. That was Lannister problem in his own fighting. He was still thinking. 

The next day at dawn, Lannister strode into the yard alone, as haughty and self-assured as his bloody sister…and as his son…and Arya knew exactly what emotion would fuel her. As he bound up her arm again, he looked at her with those emerald eyes – Joffrey Baratheon’s eyes, the eyes that had shone when he killed her father, and she went calm, and blank, then, she found that vengeance, and attacked. And won.

She fought wildly, pressing forward constantly, never stepping back, never retreating, exhausting the slightly older man with the much heavier sword. Bout one was done, Needle to his Lannister neck. Bout two began and then was done, her boot on his Lannister chest. Bout three.

Lannister tried to make the same jokes he had made the day before, the boring ones, about her sword being the cock she always wanted. He drawled insults about her sword form, but Arya barely heard them and never replied. She did allow herself a small smile when she had Lannister in a draw in bout three and he had to ask “three out of five, she-wolf?” but then she pressed again.

She had not avenged her family in months. Killing the Freys, working her way south had fed some sort of fire-breathing beast inside her scorching out the pain of her family’s death to cinders. And now that beast was awake again and starved. She felt the world fading around her as she fought those emerald eyes. And by the start of the fourth bout, she needed to kill. She got Lannister on the ground to yield, and Bran’s face flashed in her mind and without stopping to think she pulled the release on the hidden dagger in her sleeve and held it to Jaime Lannister’s throat, trembling as a thin line of blood seeped out of the Kingslayer’s neck.

 

\---

 

 _The girl is incredibly good_ , thought Jaime as he reset for the fourth bout. She was a different fighter than the one he had seen the day before. He could probably still best her, with practice, but this was definitely going to be fun. And losing to her wasn’t half bad either…having a little woman like her standing above him with a sword to his neck was less terrifying, and more arousing, than he had expected. He’d fought Brienne of course, who was attractive in her own ways, but Brienne’s armor made her look like a man. Arya Stark wore tight, lightly padded leather armor, cut at the chest in a way that made very clear where her perky breasts were…and she wore tight breaches above her boots…the girl’s ass was exceptional just like Brienne’s was, fighters had that…

Jaime was mentally comparing the various asses of swordsmen and swordswomen he’d seen in the back of his mind while he fought. He’d finally gotten good enough with his off-hand that he could spar like this again, have a little internal dialogue running while his body did the work. At his peak performance before he had been maimed, any non-lethal fight occupied very little of his active thinking. His body and eyes worked by instinct, barely needing his direction. _It’s why I’m so good at quips_ …

But then there was a dagger at his throat, and pain and a girl with death in her steely eyes baring down on top of him on the ground. And when Jaime Lannister saw someone with death in their eyes for him…the lion roared.

He punched the girl hard in the stomach, hard enough to kill, if it had to, sending her smaller form flying and off of him, and pressed forward for her blood. She was too small to match him with the full power of his muscles behind his blows, and he backed her against the stone wall before punching her face with his stump, slamming her head against the wall with a crack, and she slumped down, dazed, but alive.

Jaime pulled the girl roughly to her feet, holding her unbound arm behind her with his good hand, and then threw her to the ground, his boot holding her securely as she squirmed.

“And what the FUCK was that, Arya Stark?”

 

\---

 

As soon as she saw emerald eyes lose their mirth and go cold like death when she held her dagger to him, Arya knew she had miscalculated. Men the size and skill of Lannister were _not_ people she usually fought on even ground, in single combat. And certainly not one-handed. Sure enough, the Kingslayer demonstrated a strength and precision in causing her pain and pinning her to the ground that showed that he was no man to be trifled with.

And now, as the roar of the beast fading inside her, she had to think about what on earth to say to him. It would hardly do to try and convince him that holding a dagger to his neck had been an accident – although, frankly, that was basically what had happened…her head swam, and her ears rung from the hit of her head on the stone wall as Lannister’s boot ground hard into her spine. “STOP” she finally yelled, “STOP”. “YIELD”.

Jaime scoffed without even a hint of amusement and pressed into her back further.  “Yield is for play fighting, girl, not assassinations.”

 _He has to let me up eventually,_ she thought. … _or he’ll just kill me_. “I’m, uh…I’m sorry!” Arya yelled. And at this, Jaime laughed genuinely.

 “You’re sorry? You’re sorry you tried to _kill_ me?”

Bran’s face flashed again in her mind’s eye. “You fucked Joffrey Baratheon into this world. You fucked the Mad Queen! You crippled my brother!”

There was a long pause. And then Jaime Lannister answered her. “Yes. All of that is true.” She could almost hear him smirking above her. “And I suppose if you’re “really sorry” – his voice dripped with sarcasm – “we could talk about it like honorable men instead of you acting like some low mercenary brute.”

Arya felt her face reddening. “Are you still armed, wolf-girl?”

“Yes.” She choked out.

“Where are the other daggers?”

“One in my left sleeve, one in each of my boots, one along my sword belt opposite the scabbard.”

Lannister knelt and replaced his boot with his knee, causing her to yelp in pain. Then, he pulled off her boots, and used his bad arm to wrench her up by her neck so he could reach in front of her and undo the buckles of her coat. He threw that aside as well, leaving her tunic and the small bracers that held daggers. He tossed each dagger away in no particular direction as if it were nothing, then unhooked her sword belt and threw Needle out of reach as well. As always when she was fully unarmed, Arya felt a bright, painful flash of panic, and tried to calm her racing heart.

Lannister’s low voice was in close to her in her ear, his stump still holding her neck in place. “Is that really all of them or do I have to strip you naked to find the others?”

A queer sensation that felt entirely out of place to the situation ran down Arya’s spine, which did nothing to slow her heartbeat. Then she choked out – “no, that’s it, I swear. I swear on the bones of my father.”

“Fine.” Lannister dropped her head to the ground and then hauled her up to her feet, holding her close to him with his stump to around her waist, pinning her between his elbow and her chest as he undid the strips tying her sword arm. Another strange rush of sensation up Arya’s spine. “Apologies for the less than virtuous pose here, Arya, but my circumstances force me to improvise. He pulled her sword arm behind her and tied her wrists together with the binding. Then, he shoved her forward. “Let’s have a chat, shall we?”

 

\--

 

Finally satisfied that the girl was completely and totally neutralized – he’d heard some pretty outlandish stories about her skills – Jaime wiped the blood from the nick she’d left on his neck. Then, he strolled over to the steps leading out of the yard and patted the space next to him. “Sit.”

Arya sat next to him, looking, well, like like a person who knew she’d just done something incredibly stupid. Jaime found he had very little idea how to start this particular conversation. So, he simply asked; “what do you want to know?”

“Why did you try to kill Bran?” she asked quietly, her voice shaking a bit. “He was just a little boy.”

Jaime put on his most disinterested tone. _Sentiment is the enemy in this conversation_ , he thought. “Because your brother had just seen me fucking my sister. Which, of course, was embarrassing, and I really didn’t want to have to explain the birds and the bees to the boy. But also, the fact that I fucked my sister regularly was one of the most dangerous secrets in Westeros, a secret that, when it was revealed, by _your_ father, created a war in all seven kingdoms that has killed thousands – as I knew it would. I also had three children born of our union, who would have likely been put to the sword themselves if they were revealed as bastards. I also imagine they wouldn’t like me very much anymore. It was a secret I worked very, very hard to keep quiet, for many years. I wasn’t about to be undone by a nosy nine-year-old.”

Jaime stood and paced away from the bound girl. He appreciated that she met his eyes and didn’t snivel and weep or interrupt him and yell like he expected her to. “I can’t undo it, Arya Stark. I’m glad he survived the fall, and sorry that was for naught and he ended up dead anyway. I’m not proud of crippling him, but I will not apologize for it. I did it for my _children_. I did it for my _family_.”

Arya didn’t speak. After a rather awkward amount of silence, Jaime continued, pacing. “As for bringing my children into the world, I’m not sure I can honestly apologize for that, but I do regret that the oldest turned out to be such a heinous little shit.” He dropped the sarcasm from his voice and met her gaze. “I _am_ sorry I was not there to control my son when he committed the worst of his crimes against your family. Your father should never have died. And he would not have had I, or my father, or my brother been present, I assure you of that. The Lannisters responsible for your father’s death died painfully already, in blood and fire.” He turned away from her again, busying himself with picking up her daggers.

He could feel her glare on his back. “I have _no_ parents. _No_ trueborn brothers. Because of _you_. You and yours.”

Jaime rounded on his heels. “My aunt Genna has a little granddaughter, just three or four. Her name is Joanna Frey. Named after my mother, actually. Sweet thing. Tell me, Arya Stark, if Joanna Frey were to toddle up to you and ask why her cousins, her grandfather, her great-grandfather, all her favorite little Frey playmates’ fathers had died at your hand, what would you tell her?”

Arya met his gaze, steadily. “I would tell her that they killed my family.”

“ _Quite_. _So_. You and I aren’t that different, Arya Stark. We don’t do the plotting, we just protect and avenge the ones who do.” He sighed. “The things we do for love.”

Jaime sat back down on the steps. Arya looked at him, her eyes worried, looking much younger and smaller than she had. “Now what?”

Jaime chuckled. “First off” – he picked up one of the daggers by his feet and made a little nick on her collarbone, drawing blood and a yelp. “ _That_ evens us out for the dagger to my neck.”

“Let’s see…second, do you swear you’re not going to try and kill me again? Well, unless I maim _a different_ sibling of yours, I suppose.”

“I swear. On the grave of my father.”

“Excellent! I similarly swear that I will not try to kill you, unless you go stabbing Tyrion, and I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re quite a satisfying sparring partner, she-wolf. I’m going to enjoy figuring out how to beat you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Lose the daggers though.” Arya nodded, and just like that, Jaime pulled the knot on her hands, freed them, and set to picking up his own things. This had not been his favorite conversation, but he was determined to keep his air of disinterest while in the girl’s sight. “Put some steak on that face or it’s going to swell.”           

As he walked up the stairs to leave, he heard Arya’s voice behind her. “You won’t tell Jon?”

Jaime looked back. “Your brother, it strikes me, is one of the people who do the plotting, not the protecting. I think I would find his opinions on people like us tiresome.” And Jaime strode away.   _That_ , he thought, rubbing the little cut on his neck, _was an even more interesting morning than yesterday_.


	4. Crossed Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Arya and Jaime have a lot of feelings about the past.

Arya’s face did swell, badly, which led to questions from Jon. She told him she’d been sparring with a stray bannerman – telling Jon that a Lannister had hit her head against the wall seemed like it would raise more questions than it answered. The stares were annoying, but ultimately, she had to admit to herself that they were a small price to pay for attempting one of the less well thought out killings she’d tried in a couple years. When Lannister was guarding the queen at the same time she was guarding Jon, however, she could have done without him _also_ expressing his false shock at the severity of the injury, causing Jon and the Queen herself to focus on it anew and ask whether she needed a Maester.

The next morning at dawn Arya found herself back in the practice yard, Lannister already there. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Daggers?”

“No daggers.”

He crossed the yard to her and grabbed her arm, feeling for bracers. “Back up! Kingslayer, no daggers. I swore on the grave of my father, didn’t I?”

Jaime backed up, hands up. “All right, All right. How’s the eye?”

“It’s _fine_.” Arya glared at him. “Are we doing this or not?”

“Aren’t you planning to bind up your arm?” Jaime’s eyes twinkled and Arya realized she needed Lannister’s help for that. Blushing a little she stuck out her arm again with the binding and he chuckled and walked back to her to bind her arm up.

“While we’re talking, I’ll trade you Kingslayer and Arya Underfoot for Jaime and Arya – or Ser Jaime and Lady Arya, if you prefer.”

“Arya’s fine.”

“Excellent! Jaime, then. Let’s go.”

Swords were up and the bouts began.

 

 _It was_ , Jaime thought, _objectively stupid to go back to the sparring ground against an unstable little wolf pup like Arya Stark- especially with live steel in her hands_. And yet, there he was at dawn, more to beat the boredom than anything else. And the next day, and the day after that. They both improved. Jaime needed to re-learn how to counter her speed and loosen his sword forms, and Arya needed more practice with her off hand. But she got better much faster than he did, tipping the balance of bouts from Jaime winning most, to an unstable tie, to Arya winning the majority of their bouts. _Getting Old, Jaime,_ he thought. _Getting old_.

She did not ever call him Kingslayer again. He appreciated that. The nickname had been his for almost as long as he’d been a knight, but that didn’t make it any less irritating. It made him see red when people said it with obvious contempt, making it clear that what they meant was that he was an oath breaker, dishonorable, lower than a sellsword. But it was equally irritating the way most people used it, which was like it was just his _name_. As if everything that he ever was, and ever would be, was defined by the most negative possible reading of his actions on the worst day of his life over 20 years ago. _Maybe not the worst day. Cersei may have been the worst day_. The two days he had killed monarchs in the throne room at the red keep were definitely high on the list of shittiest moments of his life. They even ranked above the day he lost his hand.

Arya was _fun_. She was fun to fight – fast, creative, and always ready for another bout. She avoided courtesies just like Jaime did, which was much more comfortable for him, though he supposed if anyone observed him talking like this to the sister of the Lord Commander, he would probably find himself in an awkward position. And, of course, she was attractive. She was younger than him, of course – Jaime had no illusions that she would be interested in him, let alone that it would be anywhere _near_ a good idea to pursue anything – but it was certainly pleasant to start his day looking at a beautiful deadly woman zip around a practice yard.

It was getting harder and harder to beat her. She was still rather easily thrown by a well-placed verbal barb, however. Thinking of those was certainly more diverting for Jaime than worrying about his unceasing march towards middle age. He used up the obvious ones quickly – he’d probably thought of twenty different ways to say that Needle was her cock and then make fun of its size – and those didn’t seem to bother her much anyway. The real winners were cracks about her age, her height, her appearance, and _anything_ that compared her to her sister. They both stayed away from the heavy stuff. Jaime had no intention of bringing death back into Arya’s eyes by mentioning her dead family – or his own.

They had finished their seventh or eighth bout about a week after Arya’s arrival when she ended their practice looking angry, not just annoyed at another harsh jab. Jaime had won the last bout but had lost the majority overall that day. After Jaime unbound Arya’s arm and she went to wash in the small basin that stood at the end of the yard, he looked back at him, irritated. “You know, this really isn’t worth my time if you’re not going to take it seriously, Lannister.”

“What do you mean take it seriously? I just beat you!”

She huffed at him. “The same way you always beat me. Yes, _congratulations_ , Ser Jaime, I am half the size of you and my sword is half as heavy as yours. When we end up sword against sword face to face, my strength is going to give out to yours. _Podrick_ could do that, though.”

Jaime found himself quite angry at the implication. “Well if you keep failing at it seems like maybe you _do_ need my skilled tutelage.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “No, Jaime. I just need my other hand. Or a dagger. Neither of which I’m carrying because of the rules you set out. It’s not like I’m regularly fighting on a battlefield with only one weapon and my sword arm literally tied behind my back.”

“In my defense, the no daggers rule is because you tried to kill me.”

“Right! And when I did, I saw how you _really_ fight, when your life is on the line. This little dance we’re doing with the funny little jokes isn’t any help to either of us.”

Jaime was getting close to her at the washbasin and felt his voice rising closer to a shout “I don’t remember asking _you_ for any help at all, Ser Stark. Nor do I need any. Certainly not from a bratty bitch who never learned her manners.”

“Of _course_ you need my help” Arya scoffed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You fight like a common foot soldier. So much for what Brienne said. So much for the Lion of Lannister, knighted at 15, greatest swordsman in the West…the next Arthur Dayne…you don’t deserve to even be _called_ a knight of the Kingsguard any…”

Jaime flared with anger and drew his sword. Arya jumped back and pulled Needle with her sword arm, circling back to the yard. “I’ll go easy on you, Kingslayer” she said with a smirk. The lion inside Jaime’s chest roared and he fought hard, determined to _hurt_ the little wolf bitch this time and wipe that smirk off her face.

She was much better with her sword arm, of course, but not good enough, it wouldn’t be enough, not against him, not against Jaime Lannister…he felt a familiar storm building inside him as the world faded out of view and he focused on the fight. She was working hard too, and when he raised his sword preparing to clang it down furiously over her head, she was quick in getting Needle up to meet his blade at an angle, putting the pressure on his weaker forearm muscles instead of his bicep…he broke, sword clanging into the dirt where Arya had just been, while the little bitch instead ran around to his backside, her sword touching his back. He might have yielded in a previous match, but he would take any chance he could this time…he yelled and swung round, sword out, and charged, remembering to pull back for non-lethal force only at the last moment, still cutting a gash in her left shoulder. She cried out in pain and yelled “Yield!”, dropping her sword and he threw his own across the yard with his rage still fueling his strength, sending it clanging into the wall by the washbasin.

She winced at the pain and he felt sated…then she fucking smirked at him again. “That’s more like it, Jaime. Same time tomorrow?” It was all he could do not to strangle the girl, as he stormed off towards his chambers, fuming, not caring a whit that she was gushing blood from her shoulder.

\--

The next morning Arya figured there was a decent chance he wouldn’t come – and indeed, he was nowhere to be found at the practice yard that morning. _Men’s egos bruise so easily_ she thought ruefully. And she _had_ been fairly harsh, she supposed. But it was all true. She found it irritating when people got mad at her for telling the truth.

She had had to get the Maester – who, she was surprised to learn, was a young and fairly handsome man named Pylos – to dress her shoulder wound. Pylos was helpfully discreet about it, however, and at least _said_ that he would not inform her brother about the injury, as long as she listened to his long, but good-natured lecture about the dangers of sparring with live steel and no armor. After an hour of waiting and practicing what she could alone, Arya left to go check in on Jon at the keep.

She found him working in his chambers, doing some sort of calculation and planning about obsidian mining and transport. He had moved in to chambers that had apparently been Stannis Baratheon’s, near Aegon’s glorious painted table. Jon was apparently having an extension to the table built depicting the area North of the wall. Jon had not been nearly as friendly and brotherly as she was used to once they had left the ship and set foot on Dragonstone – he seemed unable to turn off his role as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch even for a moment.

After about 30 minutes of trying to engage him in conversation, ask if he needed a guard, or at least asked if he wanted to eat dinner together tonight, Arya started to feel exactly as useless as she had tagging along with Robb and Jon when they went hunting as children. She sat, trying not to look like a petulant child, on one of the chairs near him, and realized she was about to have an extremely boring day.  

The plan had been for Arya to act as Jon’s sworn sword, at his side as much as possible to keep him safe. But he had also brought a Night’s Watch brother down with him who’s company he seemed to favor – a, big, jovial man called Grenn. The Dragon Queen also often had her own Queensguard in the room with Jon. This time, it was the strange Astapori captain named Grey Worm. He looked very uncomfortable in Kingsguard white, which, Arya assumed, was not his normal dress. After considering the various ways she could sneak around and surprise the man to see if he’d break his absurdly disciplined stance, she decided that she would prefer not to give Jon more reasons to see her as Underfoot. She said her goodbyes – Jon did not even look up from his work to reply – and left to find something else to do.

However, once outside of Jon’s presence, Arya realized that the only other person she really knew in the castle was Podrick Payne, who was, usually, squiring for Jaime Lannister himself. _Might as well make a peace offering_ , thought Arya, swinging by the kitchen to grab some rather scrawny late autumn pears that had made their way to Dragonstone from the Reach, and set off to find Jaime and his squire.

She didn’t bother asking for directions, preferring to knock around the castle and learn more about where things were, but she eventually found the Kingsguard’s quarters above the armory, quite near the same practice yard she and Jaime had used the day before. Luckily, she heard voices coming out of one of the rooms, and all at once found herself in Jaime Lannister’s chambers, where he was having an animated argument with Pod about the different strengths and weaknesses of the various weapons that enemies of the Targaryens had used to kill dragons over the centuries. They did not notice her as she slipped through the door, around to the long poster bed, and behind Pod. Then, Jaime caught her eye. He didn’t look happy to see her, but he didn’t say anything, just cocked an eyebrow. But, her plan was in motion anyway, so she figured there was no harm in trying to enlist him. She pointed to Pod and put her finger to her lips, then walked slowly around while Pod was looking the other way and sat in the chair across from Jaime, as if she’d been there the whole time.

As planned, Podrick Payne nearly jumped out of his skin in fright. Arya laughed, and even Jaime afforded her a slight chuckle. When they were done mocking Pod, Jaime raised an eyebrow at her. “Did you need something, Lady Stark?”

Arya found herself without particularly clever words, so she just told the truth. “You weren’t at the practice yard this morning.” Jaime narrowed his eyes, then turned to Pod. “Podrick, could you run down to the kitchens for some cheese and meat and wine? I’m thinking of starting an early lunch.” Podrick wasn’t stupid, Arya knew, and gave her a look as if to make sure she was all right being left with the Kingslayer, Arya gave him a nod, and he disappeared through the door, leaving it wide open behind him. _So much for privacy_ , thought Arya. It certainly wouldn’t do to close the door herself.

She tossed a pear at Jaime. He tried but failed to catch it and had to pick it up from the floor. He glowered at her. “No, Arya Stark, I was not at the practice yard this morning, because I didn’t need to be disrespected by a little wolf bitch who doesn’t know how to respect her elders.”

Arya had to laugh at that. It was just so ridiculous! “Respect? Jaime, while we’ve sparred you’ve called me a whore, a wench, a worthless cow…no wait I think it was that I was a bull because my teats weren’t big enough to be a cow? You’ve referred to me as a fat bitch _and_ a skinny cunt, which didn’t make any more sense at the time than it does now. But you’re trying to say that you didn’t show up this morning because I was _disrespectful_?”

Jaime glowered at her. Arya stopped laughing. There was hurt in her eyes, which was exactly why she was here. For whatever gods damned reason, she felt bad about how badly she’d thrown Jaime off the other day. He had looked upset, and so she should probably apologize. It’s what her mother would have made her do. She tried to channel Sansa. “I’m sorry I called you Kingslayer again, Ser Jaime. And I’m sorry I said you didn’t deserve to be a knight. That was low of me.”

Jaime’s expression softened a little bit…and Arya found herself unable to avoid saying her piece. She was too curious. “ _but_ , you aren’t trying. And you know you aren’t. Why aren’t you? I’d think you’d know by now that I can hold my own.”

“You’re bad at apologies.” Jaime sneered. “And I’m absolutely trying, you ass. It’s infinitely more insulting to tell a man who can’t measure up to you that it’s _his_ fault.”

“But it _is_. Don’t you want to get just as good with your left as you were with your right? Don’t you want to come back?”

“It’ll never happen, Arya. I’ve got my role. I can train good men for the front. But my true fighting days are over.”

Arya found herself frustrated by Jaime’s resignation to his fate. He had _everything_ she wished she had been born with. He was a man, tall, famous, attractive…she stood and walked over to him. “well that’s just ridiculous.” She grabbed the top of his stump arm. “All of this is still intact, right? The bicep? And the shoulder rotates, right?”

Jaime said “yes” through gritted teeth.

“So all you’re _really_ missing is the wrist and hand. You could train this arm, strengthen the bicep, and you could use it to push yourself back up, punch…” she smirked. “Hell, lash a blade to it and you won’t even miss the hand…”

He laughed a little, presumably at the prospect of turning his stump into a short sword, but still replied “No use, Stark. I trained my right longer than you’ve been alive. Most I’ll ever get with my off hand is…serviceable.”

“well that’s just nonsense. I’ve seen you fight left handed when you decide to give a shit. You’re perfectly capable. What, afraid of a little work?”

\--

Jaime was annoyed at the Arya’s tone, which could only be described as…peppy. “no, Ser Stark, I’m not ‘afraid of a little work’ but…” he tried to put it a patronizing tone to… _make up for the fact that I don’t have an end to that sentence_ …

“Fine then. Let’s spar. I’m not doing anything, and clearly, neither are you.”

“Fine.”

 _She’s so much like Brienne_ , he thought. And he had to admit, having Brienne in his life had, well, saved his life – and not just physically. Brienne had reminded him he was still worth something. All Cersei had ever wanted was to give him a golden hand to strap on and remind him that he was forever less, forever broken. Even when he had tried to make love to her she’d turned him away because she said he wasn’t any good at it anymore, that he was a cripple. She’d been a mad drunk at the time, but it had still stung to his core.  

 _Better not to think of those last months with her_ , thought Jaime as they walked down to the practice yard in silence, Pod trailing behind them with his plate of cheese looking thoroughly confused. These past few months at Dragonstone had left Jaime entirely too much time alone with his own thoughts and restarting their practice sessions was as good an idea as any. Arya Stark was a welcome distraction from any number of things.

They reached the yard. Arya did not tie up her arm, but when Jaime asked about it, she simply replied “You don’t really need me to.”

He probably did. They fought hard, very hard. Jaime did, in fact, try. He stopped dropping into his normal lazy sparring form he could use with the young squires he trained, and he fought in earnest. Arya still won each time. “I’m still going easy on you, Jaime. But you’re getting there.”

 _Now that is a tone I don’t think my dignity can tolerate_ , thought Jaime. He strode up to her so that they were toe to toe, him looking straight down at her, a full head taller. “No. This is not going to be some cute story where the little girl teaches me to fight again and love myself like my father never loved me. You should get off your high horse. You’ve got plenty of your own weaknesses to work on.”

“Like what?” she asked the question genuinely. She didn’t seem at all stung by the critique.

“Well first off”, he forced Needle out of her hand with a quick unexpected swipe of his broadsword – “you fight with a little skinny toy sword like a child. It does you fine for sparring and surprise attacks, but on a battlefield, you’re going to need to hold a longsword, and you’re too weak for one.”

Jaime tossed his longsword to her. “Here. Hold that above your head for as long as you can. Arm straight, as high as you can, keep the blade parallel to the ground.”

Arya did so and held it for about 20 seconds before her arm started to wobble…and gave out about 10 seconds after that.

“Pathetic. You should be able to hold that for a minute at least, and your wrist should be able to keep it completely straight out in front of you for even longer.”

“I can do that with Needle. I like my sword just fine.”

“Well I liked my hand too, but sometimes we can’t have what we want.” He thought for a moment, an idea forming in his mind. “Do you want to learn to use a real blade?”

Arya glared at him, presumably because he’d insulted her precious little sword, but Jaime took her silence as a yes. _And_ , he thought, _I have to have this conversation with either Arya or her brother eventually anyway._

Jaime turned around. “Pod! Can you fetch my other sword from my rooms, please?”

“Do you want the cheese?”

“Oh. Uh, Sure. Leave it on the steps.”

Pod returned a few minutes later holding a beautiful sword and scabbard, with a golden lion’s head pommel. Jaime could see Arya’s eyes widen in awe.

Jaime sat back down on the steps and again patted the space next to him. When she sat, he pulled the sword out of the scabbard enough to show the steel, and the red patterns swirling in the dark grey of the blade. “Do you know what this is?”

Arya narrowed her eyes at it, thinking. “Valyrian Steel…”

“Yes. Have you seen one before?” he wanted to lead her to this slowly…if only because a quick revelation as to what exactly Widow’s Wail was might lead to his summary execution at her hands.

“My father had a Greatsword, Ice. It was beautiful.” She looked at Jaime, the rage in her eyes building. “Ilyn Payne killed him with it.”

“Yes, he did. Do you know what happened to it?”

“It was made into Oathkeeper. Brienne has it. We’re going to get it re-forged and recolored when we can, but for now, it’s protecting the Starks…”

“Yes. Ice was melted down and Oathkeeper was made from it. My father gave it to me, and then I gave it to Brienne to retrieve and protect your sister. But Oathkeeper is a Longsword. Ice was a Greatsword. There was enough steel for _two_ swords. This…” he took Arya’s hand and placed it gently on the hilt of the sword, “is the other half. It belonged to…to my sons.”

Unsurprisingly, Arya’s hand immediately tightened on the grip. “It’s mine by rights. It’s my father’s sword. Give it to me.”

“Yes”, said Jaime, putting his hand over hers. “It belongs to the Starks. I had intended to give it to Jon Snow to take back to your sister, or to wield himself, whatever your family wanted. But I saw he’s already got an ancestral Valyrian sword. Something I know Ser Jorah is none too happy about.” He saw her eyes running over the scabbard and blade. She looked sad, as if looking at the grave of an old friend. He supposed in some ways she was. He felt his heart clench a bit.

“Here. You promise not to kill me if you take it out?” she nodded. He loosened his grip and she drew out the sword. It was much smaller than Oathkeeper – although an adult could wield it, it had been made for a teenaged Joffrey. For the first of the Lannister kings.

Arya ran her fingers over the blade, testing the edge, the tip. It drew a small bead of blood from her thumb. The sword was marked as Lannister through and through, with its gold lions-head pommel and ruby inlaid hilt. The crimson in the blade was hard to see, but it was there, swirling through the dark grey steel when it caught the light. She ran her fingers over the lion’s-head. “This was cruel.” Her voice was shaking. “My father was Hand of the King. An honorable man. A Lord of an ancient house. To kill him…to kill him was one thing. But to give his sword to his killer…to take his…his legacy from him…”

 “It _was_ cruel, even for my father.” Jaime agreed. “But my father has always so desperately wanted a Valyrian steel sword to call our own. We don’t have one, you know. Lost it in some fool’s journey by one of my ancestors 300 years ago.” He sighed and met her eyes. “I would…hope you would know, given what I did with Oathkeeper, that it was not a decision I found honorable.”

“What is this one named?”

Jaime winced. “You’re not going to like it.” Arya looked up, challenging him. Jaime had a strong urge to put his arm around the woman. _Gods, but my son could be cruel_. “He named it Widow’s Wail.” Jaime said as kindly as he could. Arya looked stricken. Then, she shook with rage.

“I should have been the one to kill him. I should have run him through with his own sword. No, I should have cut off his fingers with it first, then his cock, his stones, his sneering little mouth so he couldn’t scream…made him suffer…” Arya was lost in an angry, vengeful fantasy, as if Jaime wasn’t even there. Jaime winced again – _the focus on cutting off his cock seems particularly harsh_ – until Arya looked straight at Jaime’s eyes, the same death in them that he had seen when she had a dagger at his throat. “I should have been the one to kill all of you.” Jaime tightened his grip around her hand and the pommel again and tried to keep his voice steady. The girl _was_ dangerous when she was like this, and he’d rather not have a physical fight. He heard Pod behind him on the steps start to unsheathe his sword but waved him off with his stump. She was trying to pull away with the sword and Jaime was gripping her small wrist hard enough to bruise.

“Well, you swore you wouldn’t kill me or Tyrion. Best to at least hold to that sacred oath for a week or so, seems to me?” He felt Arya stop fighting his grip, but her hands still shook with fury. “As for the rest…my sons are as dead by their killers’ hands as they would have been by yours. And Joffrey, as I’m sure your sister has told you, died…rather painfully. Perhaps more painful for his mother than for him personally, but he drowned in his own blood in front of a thousand onlookers. It was plenty brutal. Believe me,” Jaime added darkly. “I was there.”

He waited until she stopped trembling below him and pushed ahead with his plan. He felt like he should stand, have some sort of formality to this, but he also didn’t think moving his grip off of Arya’s hand was a good idea. “Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell,” he said, “I would give your family back this sword, to be reunited with its brother if you wish, or wielded separately. And if you would like, as the only apology I can personally give, I would also be happy to teach you how to use it.”

Arya looked up again at him, surprised. “I know how to use a sword.”

“Not this one.” He reached gently to the hilt. “May I?” Arya let him hold the sword. He stood, and whipped it around. It _sang_ in the air in that queer way that these magic swords did. It was truly a thing of beauty. “Valyrian steel is lighter than true steel, which will be good for you, but it’s still much heavier than that little stick you carry now. And it’s sharper – never loses its edge. Generally, too dangerous to spar with. Valyrian steal is made for death, not for practice. But,” he continued, “You can practice with a normal longsword; we have plenty in the armory. If you’re getting used to sparring with a real longsword you will probably match my level of skill rather well. And, it seems that neither of the people we’re supposed to be guarding much want our assistance, so we have all the time in the world.”

“Why are you doing this? Why not just give the sword back to Jon like you planned?”

Jaime felt a little thrown by the question. The complicated truth of the reason was certainly too much to share- he wasn’t even sure he understood it himself. “Because you amuse me, Arya Stark. And I’m bored. Also, you have a cute ass and this way I get to look at it in breeches more.”

Arya flushed bright red and pushed away from him on the steps. Jaime laughed at her, finding himself relieved that the hard part of the conversation was over. “Kidding, she-wolf. Now, let’s get back to it, shall we? Pod, can you lend Arya your sword for the time being?”

\--

They went back to sparring, and spent most of the day at it, supping on the cheese and meat Pod had brought. Later, Arya took the sword back to her rooms. She had an odd feeling about showing it to Jon. Like she wasn’t completely sure he’d give it back. At the very least, it was a conversation that could wait a few days.

The Lannister lion stared up at her from its hilt, gaudy and defiant. She hated it. _That_ she could do something about. The hilt wasn’t Valyrian Steel, at least. She found her sharpest dagger and took to prying out the rubies with it, sending them skittering across the stone floor of her chamber.  


	5. Dragonstone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick reminder that there are other people hanging out at Dragonstone other than Jaime and Arya. Expect another chapter with the two of them very soon :). Thanks for reading and commenting!

Arya guarded Jon through a number of lengthy, boring audiences he took with Daenerys Targaryen, as various Southron Lords came to hear their obligations – and make their objections – regarding the war at the Wall. It was primarily Lords from the Stormlands and the Reach who were seeing their first snow drifts coming to complain that it could not possibly be so bad as to require all the armies of the seven kingdoms to ride for the Nightfort. _Maybe it’s good that the Queen could not secure Dorne or the Iron Islands_ , thought Arya. _They’d probably whine even louder than this lot would._

The audiences gave Arya a chance to observe Daenerys Targaryen. Her coloring was truly odd. Arya had seen women with white-gold hair and violet eyes before among some of the Volantene merchants and courtesans in Braavos, but never in Westeros. She looked at home in the huge Dragon-shaped throne in the audience chamber, regal and commanding, certainly more than Robert Baratheon or Joffrey had ever been on the iron throne. Surprisingly, Jon looked just as comfortable there, in a huge plush seat placed next to the throne. He had allowed the Dragon Queen to replace his Nights Watch furs and armor with court clothes – still all black, but with a fine leather doublet and black boots, and someone had trimmed his beard and dealt with his somewhat unruly curls. He looked like their father, she supposed – he always had – but he also looked like Daenerys herself – imperious, icy, and resolved, with those high cheekbones and unsmiling demeanor.

He could not look more different, Arya thought, than how uncomfortable he used to look at feasts and audiences at Winterfell, sitting at the far ends of the family table, next to Rickon or Theon, and still getting murmurs about how generous her father had been to let a Bastard sit at the high table at all. Jon had become her favorite brother because he hated those feasts as much as she did – they’d snuck away together regularly, and relied on each other to make excuses to get them out of there, particularly when Arya had gotten old enough, around nine or ten, when she was no longer permitted to run about with Bran and the other boys and was expected to sit and eat her food like a proper lady. They had a hand signal – just a tug on the ear - that they had used – _get me out of here_ , it had said. Arya had been the crafty one with those plots – faking an injury, a sickness, a need to go retrieve this or that or another thing from her rooms, or sometimes just leaving for the “privy” and not coming back, until Catelyn Stark’s eyes grew irritated and Jon could volunteer to go “find” her. It would steal them a walk along the battlements away from the noise and the whispers. Two or three successfully orchestrated ear pulls and they could get each other through a whole feast without having to sit and talk to almost any bannerman or lordling. Arya would normally have earned a punishment from her mother afterwards, but Catelyn had rarely wanted to deal with Jon, and so would more often leave the matter to her husband, who clearly, couldn’t care less that his two children last in line to inherit the duties of the castle needed a break from festivities.

Arya snapped herself back from happy memories of Winterfell. Focusing on them too much was dangerously emotional for her. Those walkways around the Godswood they had wandered on were scorched now; there had been no time to rebuild most of them before the winter, and Sansa had pulled the family and household back into the Great Keep, abandoning reconstruction of the rest of the castle until Spring, if it ever came. And all but one of those people who had sat at the family table with her and Jon were dead. Their faces flashed in front of her, with the names of their killers remembered with them, side by side – Ned Stark, Ilyn Payne, Catelyn Tully, Raymund Frey, Robb Stark, Roose Bolton, Bran Stark and Rickon Stark, Theon Greyjoy. _Bran Stark…Jaime Lannister…_ she shook her head again. She and Jon had changed. Sansa was barely recognizable. They were all gone. The promises her parents made to her when she was a child, of a life with family, joy, support…they were lies. All of them. They hadn’t been able to protect their children from any of the horrors they had experienced. And Arya hadn’t been able to protect her family either.

She caught Jon’s eye. It must have been almost five hours she’d stood there while he listened to these endless complaints. It was dark outside the high windows now, though these days, that didn’t tell you much about the hour. Jon smiled at her, reached up, and tugged his ear. She tugged hers back and grinned. Jon stood, leaned over the Dragon Queen’s throne between audiences, and she stood too. Jon gestured with his head towards the door with Arya and they walked out to share dinner and jokes about the Southern whiners, afraid of all that snow.

 _Not all lies_ , she supposed, as she fell asleep that night, Needle at her side as always. She still had one last brother. She still had Jon.

\---

Jaime was summoned to the dragon queen after the long audiences with this, that, and the other petitioner with a simple “Ser Jaime, a word?”

She led him back to her solar, the unsullied captain Grey Worm trailing behind him. He had never been alone with Daenerys Targaryen. He took his traditional stance, kneeling, head on scabbarded sword hilt. “Your Grace.”

“Sit, Kingslayer.” Daenerys kept to his titles in public, which, he thought ruefully, made her more polite than Robert Baratheon or indeed, sometimes his own sons. But in private, he was always Kingslayer. She was the only person he didn’t mind it from. The first time she called him that, he winced instinctively, but then he had a sudden realization that Daenerys Targaryen was, quite literally, the only living person who he felt had _any_ right to hate him for stabbing the mad king. He had saved the rest of the realm from madness, a decision he had never doubted, not once in his life. But he had been Daenerys’s father. You're always allowed to be angry at the man who killed your father, no matter how mad he was.

Jaime took his seat opposite her. This wasn’t the first time he’d been summoned to her, but it was the first time she’d offered him a chair.

“I have a question about my brother”.

 _This again_ , thought Jaime. Jaime’s personal knowledge of her family, long dead, seemed to be most of the reason the Dragon Queen kept him around. Barristan Selmy had that knowledge too, of course, but the Old Grandfather was often frustratingly vague out of some misplaced desire to protect the girl from the ugliness of the truth. Jaime had learned early that the Queen seemed to appreciate his bluntness. She busied herself with the papers on her desk while they talked. “Tell me, Kingslayer. Was my brother mad?”

“I understand from the Horse Lords that Prince Viserys grew to be quite the spitting image of your father. But you know that. I assume you are asking about Rhaegar.”

“Yes. He kidnapped Lyanna Stark. Raped her. Killed her. Left her dying. I have gathered from Ser Barristan that he saw this as an act of madness, and that my brother had previously been a man of honor. But I know you knew him well as a young man. So, tell me, Kingslayer, was my brother mad, like my father?”

“Your Grace, it is said among the smallfolk that when a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin. Madness or greatness.” Jaime smirked. “Three children of the mad king, one confirmed to be mad…you want to know your odds.”

“Too bold, Kingslayer.” The Queen did not look up from her work when she said it, but her words were cold and threatening.

“Just so, your Grace.” Jaime paused, forming his thoughts. “I understand my Ser Barristan’s view. Your brother was an honorable man. No, more than that. Prince Rhaegar was the best of us, those of us young men were at Kings Landing at the time. He was…wiser as a man of twenty than I can hope to be in a lifetime. And surely, I never saw the same madness in him that was so evident in your father. His kidnapping of the she-wolf was…out of character to the extreme.” Daenerys had stopped her work to look at him now.

“But no, your Grace I do not believe Rhaegar Targaryen went mad. I think Rhaegar Targaryen was lovesick. And stupid. Even the wisest men can be prone to _deep_ folly when women are involved.” Daenerys narrowed her eyes, but let Jaime continue. “the only evidence that Lyanna Stark was truly abducted, taken against her will, comes out of the mouths of the man you called the Usurper and his friends. And it was Robert Baratheons friends who wrote the histories for the past 20 years. All we truly _know_ is that Rhaegar and Lyanna met in the Riverlands, that she went with him without sending any word to her family – or, at least, no word that reached them – and that they went to Dorne together with three members of the Kingsguard. If you want to know more, you’d have to ask the grave of Ned Stark.”

“Thank you, Kingslayer.” Daenerys said, in a voice that clearly meant to dismiss him. On his way out the door, she asked, “I hear that the Lord Snow’s sister takes after their aunt. Perhaps I should take her for a handmaid and see if I can understand more about what exactly about the she-wolf was worth a war.”

Jaime sputtered a bit as he held back a laugh. “Your Grace, I’m sure Arya Stark would be an interesting companion, but I don’t think handmaiden will ever be a role that will suit her well.”

\--

Arya was guarding Jon in his solar a few days later when he first brought up all of the letters that had come regarding her. It began casually enough. “I keep getting marriage proposals for you.” Said Jon with a smirk. “What do you want me to do with them?”

She winced. “Say no? You really can just go ahead and say no and save me the trouble. It will be quicker for everyone.”

Jon laughed. “What about the ones that come in writing?” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a rather hefty stack of parchments, what were quite clearly letters addressed to Jon. “These are all about you. You seem to be catching eyes down here.” Arya was surprised. She’d known in a vague sense that coming south might bring such comments – she was an unmarried daughter of a great house, after all, and her father had received proposals for her hand, of various levels of seriousness, since before she could walk. Being free of that kind of chatter had been one of the singular pleasures of being someone _other_ than Arya of House Stark over the past few years. But these proposals were formal. They were invitations to _court_ her. Invitations she was uncomfortably aware that her parents would have forced her to take seriously if they were still alive and the world wasn’t about to end.

Jon started to flip through them casually. “Karstark, Flint, Tallhart, Fenn, Glover…mostly northern houses but they’re from all over, most of the great houses are covered, Tyrell, plus the other big houses of the Reach, Hightower, Florent…Arryn, obviously, they’re always trying to find some girl to marry that little sickly cousin of yours, Greyjoy, Martell, Lannister…”

“Lannister?”

“The lesser branch, the Lannisport ones, apparently their son was just knighted? Oh and here’s my favorite one – you’ve got a proposal from a boy named Ser Tywin Frey.”

Arya almost spit out the water she was drinking. “Wait, there’s a Frey who wants to marry me? I killed…a lot of Freys. I know there were some that weren’t involved in the wedding but…and his first name is _Tywin_?”

“Apparently his grandmother is a beloved Lannister aunt of Tyrion’s – the boy is named after the Old Lion. Tyrion apparently sung your praises via raven. According to Tyrion there’s a decent contingent of Freys that figures you did them all a favor – a contingent mostly headed up by this aunt of his. And I guess the Lannisters are pretty tolerant of kinslaying these days, if Lord Tyrion and Ser Jaime are any indication.”

“Regardless, an even more emphatic no than normal to Ser Tywin Frey.” _And_ , she thought a bit murderously, _the Imp and I will have some words about writing letters about me to his relatives_.

She must have been making a face because Jon laughed at her again. “Come on, you must have known this was coming when you came down here with me. It’s sort of flattering in a…certain light.”

Arya did _not_ find this flattering. Not in the slightest. She actually found the number of proposals rather alarming. “I was hoping that the breeches and the sword and the number of people I’ve killed with the sword would deter a bunch of pansy Southron lordlings trying to buy me”.

“Guess not. Maybe some of these men like a girl who wears the pants.”

At this, Arya reached over and punched her big brother in the arm. It was nice to tease each other like children again sometimes, though the subject matter they were discussing still made her uneasy. It made her even more uneasy when Jon’s face grew a little more serious.

“I actually…um, _do_ need to know how to respond to these. I keep getting questions about whether you’re accepting suitors.”

“Well I’m not.”

“I mean, you’re going to have to eventually, right?”

Arya glared at Jon. She did _not_ like how flippantly he was treating her wishes. She’d been telling her family she would never wed since she was a child. Surely Jon of all people knew she was serious.  “No, I don’t have to do _anything_ eventually. You need my protection, you’ve still got malcontents from the wall sending assassins for you, and plus, I’m going to be going north to the front soon.”

Jon sighed “I know, it’s just, I was talking to Dany about it and…”

Finally, a reason to change the topic. And a very juicy one at that. Arya seized on it. “Dany? And who, my dear brother, would Dany be?” Arya asked with mock innocence.

Jon winced. “I mean the Queen.”

“Getting awfully close to the Queen, are we now brother?” Arya raised an eyebrow at him. “Dany. Not even Daenerys. Is the wolf sniffing around the dragon’s nest?”

Now it was time for Jon to give her a dark glare. “It’s nothing, Arya, I’ve got my vows.”

“You told me in Winterfell that you decided you weren’t bound by your vows anymore. You can’t pull that back now, Jon, I listen to the words you say.”

“Drop it, Arya.” She yielded the topic. He looked genuinely angry and she didn’t want to end up in a real fight with him.  

“Why are you talking to the Queen about me anyway?”

“She brought you up. Offered to make you one of her ladies in waiting.”

Arya snorted in laughter. “Did you explain to her why I might be a less than satisfactory lady in waiting?”

“Yes, I did. She claimed she didn’t mind, just wanted to get to know you better.”

Arya made another face. “I’ve never had any good experiences with Queens or Kings or Princes or a Princesses. Particularly one that wanted to get to know me better. That’s another offer you can reject for me.”

“Are you seriously saying you’re _never_ going to marry?”

“I thought we had moved on from this conversation. Can we _please_ move on from this conversation?” Arya tried to put an edge in her voice to get Jon to shut up about this, though she had never had much luck intimidating her favorite brother.

“I just…I don’t know, it’s going to keep involving me so I figure I should know. Apparently being Lord Commander of the Nights Watch is enough to overcome these Lords’ aversion to recognizing a bastard as your closest living male relative. Though I imagine Sansa’s getting letters about you too.”

“Well that’s terrifying. She’ll marry me off without telling me and just have the wedding with a cat in a maiden’s cloak as a proxy or something.”

“No, she wouldn’t” Jon rolled his eyes, as he often did when Arya complained about Sansa. “But seriously, it’s not like this is going away. You’re second in line to Winterfell. And you know there are many other holdfasts without Lords after the war in the North. You could have any of them, really. Even the Dreadfort.”

“Gods Jon, I don’t want the Dreadfort. I don’t want a holdfast. You know that. Why are you pushing this?”

Jon sighed. “I’m just talking. We all have to grow up eventually, Arya.”

Arya’s rage flared white hot, and she found herself standing and yelling at her brother. “Grow up? You want me to _grow up_? You don’t think I’m _grown up_ enough after I made it to Braavos and back, avenged our family, helped save Winterfell, saved your life a few times now…Seven hells Jon, what is it that you think you know about me _growing up_? Did you bother to come find me and make sure I _grew up_ all right when our father died? I grew up just _fine_ on my own Jon Snow. And now I’m leaving.”

Arya stormed out and slammed Jon’s door behind him, furious. She found her feet taking her right to the armory where the Kingsguard quarters were. Jaime answered his door looking quite surprised to see her that late. “Spar? _Now_?” she asked, fists clenching. Jaime smirked at her, shrugged, and went to grab his sword.

           

 

Arya was clearly angry about something, showing up to knock on Jaime’s door in the dark, after dinner, her little fists in tight balls at her sides. He wondered if she realized how improper the whole thing looked if anyone had seen them. But there was no one around, and he didn’t feel like lecturing the girl, given her mood. Indeed, he thought that might be actively dangerous. And certainly, he was no stranger to the concept of getting out anger and frustration in the sparring yard. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Jaime was well aware what it felt like to be sneaking away from the Kingsguard tower to do something untoward with a woman, and this was not that.

They fought hard. He let her keep Needle, rather than throwing her a blunted longsword. She had been losing constantly since picking up the heavier sword, and she was clearly more interested in getting some aggression out than in training. He won one or two bouts, which pleased him; she had all the advantages, except whatever anger was fueling her. It would have been easy to win more by teasing her, stoking whatever instability was lurking in her tonight, but there was something about her eyes when she had come to his room that made him hold his tongue. She really wanted to fight, to take her mind off whatever was troubling her. She needed him. Needed…well, a friend, he assumed. And that was, he supposed, a good enough reason to be kind to the woman for tonight. Certainly, Brienne had done the same for him plenty of times, without ever asking for a thing in return. He couldn’t return that favor to the Maid of Tarth right now, but he could be helpful to the little spitfire she had sent to him.

When she finally held up a hand to signal that she was done, after an hour or so, she said the strangest thing. “Tell your little brother to keep his little broken nose out of my life. I don’t need him talking about me to…to anyone.”

Jaime looked at her, confused. “What did Tyrion do?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just tell him to stay away from me. And that I’m not interested in being a part of his scheming.”

With that, Arya Stark stormed off up the steps. “Tomorrow morning?” Jaime called after her, confused. “Dawn”. She barked.

“She’s an odd one, isn’t she”, Jaime said to no one in particular as he gathered up his things and headed towards his rooms.


	6. Truths

The next morning though, Jaime’s curiosity did get the better of him. He’d barely seen Tyrion and Arya exchange more than ten words with one another; what could his brother have possibly done to earn her seething hatred?

  
“We’re playing a game today”, he announced jovially in the morning, tossing her a blunted longsword. He threw a little wide from where she was, though. His left hand was shit at catching and throwing. She smirked at him, her discomfort from the night before seemingly gone. “Hope it’s not sword throwing”, she said, picking the sword up from the practice yard floor. She smirked wider when his grin slipped just a bit.

“No. Wins for answers. You win a bout, ask me anything, I’ll tell you the truth.” He raised his sword and approached. “I win, turnaround’s fair play.”

Their swords clashed. “This doesn’t sound like a game; this sounds like you getting information out of me.” grumbled Arya.  
“Then I guess you’d better win.”

Jaime was fairly confident; since switching to longswords, Jaime had been able to beat Arya more than half the time. And to be fair, he was almost as curious about what the girl might ask him than he was to the answers to his own questions.

\--

Well I’m certainly not playing THAT game, thought Arya as they first clanged longswords, and she felt her wrist ache from the strain of supporting the heavier sword and pushing against her opponents’ blade at the same time. The only more suspicious sparring game I’ve ever heard of was that time one of the Brotherhood men offered to trade wins for kisses. It’s not like she had agreed to the damn game anyway. Still, winning this bout would probably save her some grief from those stupid smirking lips of his.

Arya brought her offhand up to brace against Jaime’s punishing downswings. “It’s not a Greatsword, Arya. You can’t wield it two-handed forever”. He warned, lazily swinging his own sword against hers as he drove her back all the way to the wall of the yard, his pace unhurried. To emphasize his point, when he got close enough, he tapped her side with his stump. “If that was a second sword, you’d be dead.”

“But it isn’t.” said Arya, using the leverage she had with her two hands to unsteady the knight while kicking behind her onto the wall, using it to gain a little extra speed as she ducked under Jaime’s blade, ending up back across the yard with both hands on the damned longsword again. She rushed Jaime, hoping to get to him before he could react properly, and was able to, hitting his knee hard so that it bucked out from under him and he fell down on it, holding his hands in the air as he did.  
“Alright, she-wolf. Yield. So, what’s your question?”

“Never said I was playing your stupid game.”

Jaime started wandering around the courtyard as he continued. “Come now, where’s your sense of fun, woman? Surely you must have some questions for a decorated old war hero like me, a man of history, who has seen kings rise and fall, has seen the fairest maidens and the plainest…” he was holding his arms out by ask he walked as if accepting the adoration of a crowd. GODS, he was insufferable.

And he smirked at her at the word plainest…Anything to wipe that damn self-satisfied smirk off his face, I just beat you, you bloody fool… Well, she knew that there was one person she could mention that always threw Jaime off his game. ” You ever even fuck a cunt that wasn’t your sister’s?”

Jaime’s mask fell and he glowered at her for a moment, then, unexpectedly, laughed again. “Well, at least you’re playing. Here – I’ll even give you a little extra information, since you’re so curious.” He winked at her and Arya felt her cheeks burn. _What exactly possessed you to bring up THIS topic?_ She berated herself.

“I was obsessively faithful to my beautiful sister until, let’s see…a little after your sister left King’s Landing. Cersei, on the other hand, spent the first year after King Robert’s death fucking every cock she could find – and a cunt or two, apparently – while drinking her weight in Arbor Red each day. So, after I found that out and pined for a sufficiently embarrassing amount of time, Brienne slapped some sense into me, and since then, I have very happily made up for lost time. In many cities, with many women. Tall women, short women, Dornish women, Lysene whores, pretty little miller’s daughters, Northerners…” He grinned roguishly at her and Arya again felt like she would prefer to drop dead on the spot than be in this particular practice yard with Jaime Lannister.

“Gods girl, you’re the color of a pomegranate, this is entirely too easy.” Arya glared at him. “You’re the one who asked!” he laughed indignantly.

“Didn’t ask you to leer at me.”

Jaime grinned, stepped back, and gave a formal courtly bow. “My apologies, Lady Stark, I would never want you to think me anything other than a chivalrous and gentlemanly Knight of the Kingsguard. Swords up?”

They fought again, but this time Arya was definitely off her game. Mentions of sex around Jaime Lannister would be bearable, maybe, if he was hideous. But the man didn’t even have the courtesy to be ugly. Instead, his winks made her feel extremely off balance as that strange heat that she was familiar with from nights alone with her own hands swelled through her. She had been attracted to men before, but never quite like this. It was extremely annoying. And it made her a worse fighter. He beat her in about twenty seconds, knocking her to the ground, then offering her a hand to get up. “My turn”.

“I’m not playing”. Arya ignored his hand and scrambled to her feet.

“Oh, you are definitely playing after you asked me that question.”

“Fine. Get it over with.”

Jaime chuckled at her again. “Have you ever lain with a man at all, Arya Stark?”

 _Well,_ she thought _, could be worse_. He cheeks still burned. “No” she bit off tersely. “And I’m only going to keep sparring with you if we move off this topic.”

“You’re the one who started on this topic to begin with! But fine, my dear maid of Winterfell, I’ll accept those terms.”

“Never, ever call me that again.”

The next bout was over just as quickly. Jaime laughed at her again. “Seven hells, Arya, I’ve clearly found a new method of beating you, just mention fucking…”

“I told you, we’re OFF this topic!” Arya yelled at him. He held up his arms in mock defeat.

“All right, all right, I still get my question though. Here, I’m done with the dirty jokes, come take a break with me and get some water.”

\--

Jaime dunked a cup in the basin and handed the dripping cup to Arya. Sitting next to him on the stone steps in the crisp air, she drank the water thirstily. Of course, some of it had to drip down off the cup over the tops of her breasts. _Heaven forbid the Gods make my life a little easier_ , he thought ruefully. Jaime did his best to stop leering at her or doing anything that could be interpreted as leering. She was particularly attractive today. It was probably the flush that was still on her cheeks. The girl was more afraid of the concept of sex than she was of death, apparently, which was endlessly amusing to Jaime. Especially for a girl who, had she been anything close to normal, would have her pick of young men. Jaime had the uncomfortable realization that his thoughts about the girl, at least this morning, were decidedly ones that her brother would have a problem with. But, he supposed, no harm done if he stopped the flirting now. He could always pick up his fun later.

“All right, she-wolf, I’ll have my question now.” Arya glared at him, balling up her fist. “I swear by the Warrior, Jaime Lannister, if you ask me something about men or marriage or bedding, I will sock you in the jaw.”

“I’m not going to!” this was too funny. He forced his face to some semblance of a serious expression. “I was just wondering why you’re so upset with Tyrion.”

And she punched him. Hard. With her little fist, in his jaw. He pushed her back and jumped to his feet, rubbing his jaw.

“Seven Hells Arya! What the fuck was that for?!”

“I told you I would if you asked about men and marriages…” she trailed off, her brain apparently catching up to her anger. She looked down. “Sorry. You wouldn’t have known I guess.” she mumbled. She looked back at him, her cheeks blazing, speaking fast, almost cheerfully, as if she wanted this forgotten as quickly as possible. “Sorry, that was unfair of me, here, you can have a free hit.” And she turned stood and turned her cheek to him. Jaime shook his head at the little woman in disbelief and took her by the shoulders instead to meet her eyes.

“I’m not going to hit you, you madwoman. Just tell me. What the hell did Tyrion do?” his thoughts darkened, and a familiar feeling rose inside of him and tightened his grip on Arya’s shoulders. “He can be a little lecher, but I swear if he said something to you, I’ll cut off what’s left of his nose.”

Arya looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “No…”

“What then?” Jaime demanded, a little more harshly than he meant to.

“He wrote some aunt of yours about me, ended up with a marriage proposal from some Frey boy. Just tell him to stay the hell out of my business, especially,” she made a face, “courtship proposals.”

Jaime busted into a belly laugh. He couldn’t stop himself for a moment thinking of the size of the stones on his favorite aunt, sending a marriage proposal from her grandsons with their Frey surname to Arya fucking Stark. “Sorry, sorry.” He said as he caught his breath. “Look, I’ll bet you all the gold in Casterly Rock Tyrion didn’t have anything to do with that. My aunt is quite the lioness. My brother could have simply mentioned your existence in a letter to her and she’d be trying to marry young cousin Ty off to a daughter of a great house.”

“How very Frey of her.” Arya muttered darkly.

“Not really. She’s never been much for her husband’s family. She’s more like a much more pleasant female version of my father. One of the strongest women I’ve ever known. You’d probably like her.”

“I doubt it.”

“Fine then.” They sat in silence for a bit. “I’m going to take a wild guess and assume you don’t intend to marry?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Something we have in common. Good luck trying to convince your family. It’s no easy task, but I’ve pulled it off for 25 years, and at least you’re not an eldest son. Nor do you have Tywin Lannister as your opponent. It’s been a fight, but unwavering, unyielding stubbornness usually works, and gods know you have that in spades.” She smiled at him a bit then.

“Good to hear it’s possible. Now I’ve just got to get my space in the Kingsguard”.

“I suppose Brienne paved the way to you. You’ve got to get yourself knighted though. Dazzle some impressive respected knight with your amazing fighting prowess.”

Arya smirked at him. “Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do here.”

“Hah, well then you picked the wrong Ser. I may be good, but I’m certainly not respected.”

“Unclear whether you’re any good either.” Arya laughed as he gave her another glare and then she jumped up. “Let’s go another round.”

They fought quite a few more. Jaime found it was easy to lose track of time when he was with Arya, and he didn’t even have time to bathe before he was due in the training yards to run drills for the Queen’s actual soldiers. When he went to sleep that night, he found himself unusually cheerful. A good day all around.

\--

For her part, after she sparred with Jaime, Arya was starting her day yet again with apologies to make. Not that this was a new experience for Arya – her tongue had been getting the better of her since she first learned to talk. Hopefully Jon would remember that she didn’t mean everything she said when she was angry. Of course, it would have been easier to apologize if she actually no longer believed what she’d said to Jon the day before.

Catelyn Stark – the real Lady Stark, the one Arya always thought of when one servant or another called her by her title – had done her best to drill into Arya that courtesy was important, regardless of what you actually thought of a person or a situation. But Arya had always been particularly terrible about the part of courtesy her mother usually referred to as tact. As she walked down Dragonstone’s long, dark stone hallways to Jon’s solar, she smiled slightly remembering a conversation about tact she had had with her father, shortly before they left Kings Landing. She had made some comment about Sansa’s complete foolishness regarding the details of the feast that they would throw for the King and his family when they arrived at Winterfell. Sansa had gotten so involved in the preparations that she was soon trying to overrule her own mother when it came to silly things like the color of tablecloths and napkins. Their father had chided Sansa for this overstep multiple times, yet she persisted in the bossy way that only a 14-year-old girl truly can. So, when their parents had not been present, and Sansa had done it again, Arya had told her that this was foolish and that she was overstepping her place, because she was just a silly girl and not the Lady of any Castle, least of all Winterfell, and that in fact she would never be Lady of Winterfell, since Robb’s wife would have that title. Sansa had ended up in tears, and Arya had ended up on Ned Stark’s lap in his solar getting lectured about tact. Arya had asked her father what on earth the problem had been with her saying what was true. Her father always so admired honesty. Father had explained (not for the first time) about tact and made her practice with him all the different ways she could have spoken the truth more kindly. She had started imitating first her father’s voice, then he had imitated Arya’s, and they had soon been in fits of giggles, any hope of discipline forgotten.

Arya smiled sadly at the memory. She missed her father. She never stopped missing him. It was hard to believe that there had been a time when the hole in her heart that was created when he died hadn’t yet been there. When she had been whole. She had tried to avoid the sadness and the pain in Braavos by shedding who she was entirely. But it had never really worked. And then she had tried to burn it away in vengeance. But even after all the just deaths she had delivered to her family’s killers, the sadness lingered like a dull ache in her heart. It helped to be near Jon. She hoped he wouldn’t be too horribly cross about her yelling at him the night before.

Of course, the truth Arya had spoken to Jon was not about napkins. It wasn’t even one she had fully understood she had been angry about until it came out of her mouth. But time in the North during the war, some of it spent with men from the wall, had made it clear to her that it was not, as she’d always assumed, that Jon had been somehow under lock and key at Castle Black, truly not able to ride to Winterfell to find Robb, or to Kings Landing to search for her and Sansa. Nor was it true that he hadn’t known what had befallen the rest of her family. He had made a choice. chosen his oaths to the Watch over the promises he had made to her, to keep her safe. She couldn’t blame him, she supposed. Certainly, it was what their father would have wanted, their father who so valued sacred oaths sworn beneath a Hearttree, who would never have wanted Jon to break those vows, not even to come find her, to come save Sansa from being beaten, to save Bran and Rickon from being killed.

But regardless of what their father might have wanted or not wanted, there was no doubt in Arya’s mind that if she had been in Jon’s shoes, and she had received word at the Wall that her father had been executed and that her siblings were held captive, she would have been on the first horse she could find out of Castle Black, duty be damned. Still, true or not, it hadn’t been something she should have voiced out loud to her brother.

When she reached his solar, Arya made her mumbled apologies for her words, and Jon curtly told her to think nothing of it, quickly putting the quarrel behind them like they had when they were children together. They worked side by side amiably enough, and she even cajoled him into sparring with her in the evening. He beat her soundly, but had compliments to make on her form, and asked if she had been practicing. She demurred the question. There was something about her mornings with Jaime that she preferred to keep for herself. She didn’t want Jon’s questions about them. Especially not any questions about what she and Jaime talked about. Not after this morning’s slightly humiliating match.

They ended the night with drinks with Tyrion and his man Bronn, who Arya remembered from Winterfell. He’d marched with Lannister forces first – he’d never mentioned why, only made dark jokes about a “situation” with a duel and a dead wife that had made it prudent for him to leave the capital. But then he had then joined the company of the Knights of the Vale, then with the Northern Houses – apparently negotiating a pay raise each time. He’d stayed at Winterfell for a time after with Brienne and Pod, before heading south to, as he put it, “Go see a little hand about a big favor” which had apparently meant returning to Tyrion and asking him to sort out whatever had happened in Kings Landing.

Arya had been happy to see that Bronn was at Dragonstone – the sellsword was one of the few men, and certainly the only knight who’d ever treated her like the soldier she was. He’d been dubious about her at first, of course – everyone always was – but once he’d seen her fight, he had not once called her “my lady” or shown any kind of stupid protective instinct towards her when they fought side by side. She and Brienne and Bronn and Pod had been a motley crew of friends of sorts before Bronn left Winterfell. Bronn had taught her and Pod to drink, much to Brienne’s horror. Sansa had tried to ban her from spending time with them, but to no avail. Bronn was a good liar, and Arya had always found a way to be where she wanted to be. He and Pod had certainly made better friends than the simpering women Sansa surrounded herself with at home.

After a few glasses of good wine and a few rounds of exaggerated stories with a new motley crew of drinking buddies, Arya was beginning to feel at home at Dragonstone. Bronn was as amusing as ever, and Tyrion was full of stories. Jon, ever serious, of course, drank his wine watered, and kept taking Arya’s cup without asking and water hers down as well after she’d had a goblet or two, which was supremely irritating. But even he couldn’t hold back peals of laughter at Tyrion’s travel stories about being in a mummer’s troupe with Ser Jorah in Essos where Ser Jorah had been forced to act the part of the bear, and Tyrion the maiden fair after their female compatriot had fallen seasick. It was good to see Jon laugh. And it was nice to feel like she might have friends at Dragonstone, even if Jon still insisted on playing protective big brother. Her final thought as she drifted off to sleep, just a little tipsy, was that she’d have to tell Tyrion to bring his brother along for their next evening of wine and stories. That would be fun.


End file.
